


Snow in Landis

by deuil



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-01
Updated: 2012-10-01
Packaged: 2017-11-15 10:11:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/526142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deuil/pseuds/deuil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Basch dreams of Landis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snow in Landis

Dreams of Landis come in vials of water in Basch’s subconscious. Basch’s mind is an ocean, spanning far and endlessly into a blue horizon where the sea meets the sky, merging into one solitary block of blue-gray where the turbulence and the darkness of the depths fall beneath calmer surfaces. Behind his world of closed eyes and eventual respite, the droplets of water stored in those carefully preserved vials of Basch’s memories overflow, falling into the waveless sea and creating ripples that pattern into obscure but familiar designs.

Basch dreams of Landis, of playing cat’s cradle, of dancing lessons and cold breaths in air. He dreams of winters spent huddled in blankets, of days with thick snow, of two pairs of hands pushing his mother’s bed towards the fireplace so she could have that extra warmth while she lay in bed, resting. The dreams are pleasant, always cast in a pallid haze, as if seeing them through the other side of a pane of glass. Muffled laughter and murmured secrets come in nebulous clouds that are hard to decipher—Basch can't recall some of the more mundane conversations stored in these encapsulated reminiscences, and so he opts to fill in the blanks with vague feelings, letting a bit of the sky fall into the ocean of his mind, a bit of the ocean spray evaporate into the air.

He watches himself, age eight, coming back with dirtied shoes with his twin, leaving trails of mud on newly-dusted carpets. Soft reprimands from his ill mother dissolve into coughing, and timid apologies turn into hushed crying as he and his brother try desperately to compensate for their damages by scuffing at the already-soiled fabric. They had never been able to keep up their stubbornness once their mother displayed any signs of her sickness: she had been a strong-willed Archadian woman, her nobility only palled by her physical curse. Yet she had always been gentle, soft-spoken in her wisdom, sharp in her determination to raise her boys. The coughing continues, as does the sobs, until they both subside into a tenuous lull that Basch breaks as he discards his shoes and moves towards his mother, promising not to do it again, telling her that he’s sorry and that he’ll wash the carpet himself. It’s met with a sigh, and a laugh, and Basch feels a cold hand stroking his long hair (Noah’s cropped short, always, to distinguish the two for those who couldn’t tell the difference) and a voice saying whatever shall I do with you two? In this dream, Basch is eight, and Noah is eight, and in the last moments before wakefulness stirs the surface of Basch’s mind, they both vow to keep their mother safe from harm.

Basch hasn't seen her in 19 years, and knows he never will.

He wakes up in a cold sweat, warm thoughts of a destroyed homeland quickly dissipating into the dark. The Dalmascan Estersand blows a winter chill through warm sands, a paradox of seasons contained within one night and one place, stirring pleasant recollections with the rational realization that they are, in fact, his nightmares.

In the hollow, dried sea of Dalmasca that Basch has so grown to love, he remembers the snow in Landis.


End file.
